Chomsky, (Avram) Noam (1928– )

US professor of linguistics and political commentator. He proposed a theory of transformational generative grammar, which attracted widespread interest because of the claims it made about the relationship between language and the mind and the universality of an underlying language structure. He has been a leading critic of the imperialist tendencies of the US government.

Chomsky distinguished between knowledge and behaviour and maintained that the focus of scientific enquiry should be on knowledge. In order to define and describe linguistic knowledge, he posited a set of abstract principles of grammar that appear to be universal and may have a biological basis.

Chomsky was an active opponent of the US involvement in the Vietnam War, and continued to speak out against exploitive reactionary policies and the complicity of the media in presenting the official view of events and not questioning basic assumptions. His political works include American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) and Deterring Democracy (1991).